Host:
Dr. Graeme Groom is a British orthopedic surgeon. He’s volunteered in hospitals across Gaza over 40 times. He’s at the Al Jazeera Forum and joining us now. Sir, thank you very much indeed for being with us on Al Jazeera. We were just hearing about one of the innovative ways that a doctor is getting around the lack of medical supplies and medicines in Gaza. Can you talk to us about your experiences when you were in Gaza?

Dr. Graeme Groom:
Yes, I can. Most recently in May, I was based at Nasser Hospital with my colleagues, and during our visit the hospital pharmacy was bombed. We are very, very familiar with the shortages, and as the pharmacy store was bombed, they became more acute.
The problem with shortages of medicine is that it sounds almost benign. But we have colleagues who are in Gaza every month, and last night a colleague sent an urgent request for an antifungal drug called amphotericin. She wanted this for an 18-year-old girl who had a very rare fungal infection — a mucormycosis — as a consequence of diabetes and multiple comorbidities, poorly treated because of the shortages. And her very last message was: “This is an emergency. The fungus is eating her face.”
So when we talk about shortages of medicines, when we talk about lists that are at zero stock, both of medicine and of surgical equipment, it doesn’t sound quite as dramatic — but the individual impact is absolutely huge.

Host:
Now, Israel is supposed to be allowing in aid and medicines because of the ceasefire. Are you able to compare the situation as you understand it now in Gaza to what it was like before the ceasefire began?

Dr. Graeme Groom:
I can’t speak specifically to the supply of medicines because we are more concerned with the supply of surgical equipment. What has happened — before the ceasefire and continuing since — is a tighter and tighter squeeze. When we travel from Amman through the Allenby Bridge and Kerem Shalom, we were earlier, before the ceasefire, allowed to take a certain amount of equipment with us. We are now allowed to take nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean an anaesthetist had his stethoscope confiscated on the basis that he wasn’t going to listen to his own heart, was he?
As with everything in Gaza, there is a tightening and relaxing of the rules — that was at its tightest. We are now told that with sufficient advance warning, we can take two small boxes of equipment in at each visit. That is very unclear — the definition of what that means is unclear. And of course there is the immense problem of dual-use items. Anything defined as dual use is prohibited. You may or may not know that tents are defined as dual use because they have poles.

Host:
Just very briefly, sir — it was reported that around 20,000 people are in need of urgent medical care in Gaza. The Rafah crossing has now opened with the purpose of allowing people out to receive that treatment. What is your assessment of how effective that is going to be?

Dr. Graeme Groom:
At the moment, the number being evacuated is a trickle. There is a much larger number — between 20,000 and 25,000 — who need long-term treatment, and that is our specialty. What is required is, first, that those who cannot be treated within Gaza are allowed out — but more importantly, that we are allowed in with our equipment.

Host:
Dr. Groom, we appreciate you joining us on Al Jazeera. Dr. Graeme Groom, British orthopedic surgeon — thank you very much indeed for your time.